What's your favorite kind of strings and why?

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Turumbar82

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I've been playing for about 13 years now and have gone through almost every company of string and tried heavy, light, thick and thin and so on.

For the past couple of years I've been using D'Addario's. I was using 10's but went to 9's when I got my Ibanez because of the longer scale.

I've used fender strings and was never impressed with them. Gibson vintage strings sounded nice at first but when they went bad they really went. I remember liking the Dean Markley Blue Steels. Tried DR's and was so so about them. GHS were decent too. For a long time I used Ernie Ball thick and thins. I even used to get Webstrings (great if you are on a budget) but I've been on D'Addario for awhile now. They are consistent and not that costly.

So what strings are top on your list and why? I'm always interested in trying something new.
 
Long thread perhaps ?

I have used only a few brands over too many years :(
I like ernie ball super slinky . Usually stick with them .
I recently changed to D.R. Tite-Fit 10s @ that .
Nickle Plated , Round core . " compressed wrapped " the wrapped ones are
compression wound ? ( who knows ) a guage .43 is wrapped to .42 (who knows )
I stick with them , they sound great and last longer .
 
LerxstLee said:
I have used only a few brands over too many years :(
I like ernie ball super slinky . Usually stick with them .
I recently changed to D.R. Tite-Fit 10s @ that .
Nickle Plated , Round core . " compressed wrapped " the wrapped ones are
compression wound ? ( who knows ) a guage .43 is wrapped to .42 (who knows )
I stick with them , they sound great and last longer .

Wow... I just did the same thing yesterday! Was using EB hybrids for like a year straight or more and decided to give DR 10s a try. Very interesting string. They sound and feel great! Their longevity is yet to be determined...
 
I've been playing for alomst 30 years and have used D'Addario XL110- .010"-.046" for as long as I can remember.

I've tried other gauges, brands and types including .009"-.038" and .011"-.052", Ernie Ball, Dean Markley, GHS, Everly, Snake Oil, nickel and nickel plated and always go back to my D'Addario XL110s.

They last a long time and sound good to me.
 
I switch between D'Addario, GHS TNT's, and recently have been digging Super Slinky's.
Personally think the D'Addario's are about the best all around string for the money.
 
I played Dean Markley 10's forever. A buddy threw me a set of EB Slinky 10's and I've been playing them now for about 6 months. Both have great tuning stability and decent life. The Slinkys "feel" better to me, and maybe a little smoother sounding on an Ebony fingerboard.

BTW- Once either set is broken in it would be hard for me to pick them out in a blind A/B.

Dom
 
Ernie Ball Super Slinky .09 - .42 (the pink ones) for over two centuries on all guitars. one set had a failure since - the a string was double wounded in the middle for some centimeters. always have "some" in storage - feel poor and broke without.

the bass gets rotosounds and nothing else

for the acc i still search, would like to play strings nickel plated.
 
daddario sound the best to me but ernie balls feel a little better and bends seem a little easier. daddarios last longer...
 
Dunlop is my favourite so far. I use 10 or 11 for D# or D tuning. I suggest give it a try. I used to use ernia ball but they brake quickly.
 
I've used D'Addario XL110 for the last 30+ years and still do on my Strat & Tele, but recently on my Gibsons I've switched to Gibson SEG-SA10 Humbucker Strings. They just feel wonderful to me and sound much better, but someone above said when they go they really go... well I agree, they really do, so now I'm puttin' new strings on every week or two. When I was gigging fulltime I always went with new strings every week anyway. What the he11, just do it. We deserve it.
 
I too have been through my fair share of guitar string companies. I started out with Ernie Balls, i guess because their brightly colored packages attracted my youthful attention, I dunno. But I'd go through them like a warm knife to butter, so I went up from 9's to 10's and that helped some but I just didn't really dig them anymore. Went stale fast. I also used Fender Superbullets on my old Stratocaster, and although they were a neat idea, the sound really didn't improve, and neither did tuning stability. So, since then I've moved from GHS to D'Addario and Dean Markley. These three companies all have strings that I like in a gauge that I can use in Dropped C. My favorite strings are the Blue Steels. Those things are really nice, but they are a little harder to find in 11's. D'Addarios are really nice strings, and I like their 11-49 set, but I really wish I could find them in an 11-52 set (EXL116 set....not really carried in stores it seems). The only reason I use the GHS strings is because that's the only string co. that a local guitar store carries with an 11 gauge set. They are good strings though, not much different than the D'Addarios to me. One thing the D'Addarios have that is really nice is the colored ball ends, that makes changing strings a lot faster, and, they're a little bit more environmentally friendly with the single bagged full string set (about the only way guitar strings could go "green" I guess). But, if i were to pursue an endorsement (which I hope to sometime in the near future) I would probably go either Dean Markley or D'Addario. Right now I've set up my guitars for 11-50's, but, I'd probably go on the road with 11-52's, to add a little more beef on the low end.

-AJH
 
Funny, I was thinking about actually starting a thread about this the other day. Within the past 6 months I've become much more conscious of what I like and for what applications my strings are used for. With two guitars, I string them differently: I've realized for my Les Paul I like Power Slinky's by Ernie Ball, they're in the purple pack. They're a little thicker than standard and give me a nice powerful thickness and durability. For my PRS, I use either regular Slinky's or Hybrids. I've come to like the hybrids but want to create my own hybrid set. I've dabbled with D'addario and it's been kind-of hit and miss for me. I do enjoy Skinny Tops Heavy Bottoms also on my Les Paul, but realize that when the thicker strings start dying, it sounds even more flat than a regular gauge low E would to me.
 
for the past few years i've been using EB Power Slinkys. I usually get a few months out of them with moderate playing.

I've tried D'Addario's numerous times over the years on several different guitars and i've never been happy with them.
 
I like D'Addario. Have tried virtually every brand out there over the years and always come back to D'Addario.

This for 2 main reasons:

1) hold up to heavy vibrato bar use (esp. Floyd Rose).

2) readily available.

There may be "better sounding" strings out there, (although I have never found any significantly better that D'Addario IMO) but for the money, D'Addario is hard to beat.

For overall balance of sound quality, durability and availability, it just seems you can't go wrong with D'Addario, IMHO. :)
 
i must say very cool topic

this may sound weird but the strings depend on the guitar for me. I've had my ESP EC1000 for quite some time and have tried every string imaginable on it. For a while it was the EB Light Top/Heavy Bottoms and then i switched over to DR tite-fits for about 6 months. After that 6 months i went back to the Light Top/Heavy bottoms and haven't looking back. They get me the perfect chug and sound the best on that ESP... although they seem to wear on me every two weeks or so.

Now on my PRS i have found hands down that D'Addario 10s sound infinitely better than any EB, DR, Dunlop, Gibson, markley or GHS string. i attribute a lot of that to the fact that PRS most likely designs their strings to work well with their wrap around bridge. I love PRS 10s but they're almost 3 times what i pay for any other strings. Found out that PRS 10s are more or less the same exact specs as the D'Addario 10s and get made in the same factory. Installed the D'Addario 10s, low and behold they feel and sound the same so its been those strings since. I also love the fact they last as long as they do.
 
jdurso said:
For a while it was the EB Light Top/Heavy Bottoms and then i switched over to DR tite-fits for about 6 months. After that 6 months i went back to the Light Top/Heavy bottoms and haven't looking back.

Now on my PRS i have found hands down that D'Addario 10s sound infinitely better than any EB, DR, Dunlop, Gibson, markley or GHS string.

I'll be giving D'addarios another try next. I used them for a while then went to EBs when I bought my first EB guitar. I've not used D'addarios on my JP yet. I've got DR tite fits on it now and they feel pretty good, but I think the D'addarios may sound/feel better...
 
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